


John Laurens is a National Treasure

by Wind_Ryder



Series: Tumblr Fics [26]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda, National Treasure (Movies)
Genre: Crack that is also strangely meloncholy, Ghosts, Ghosts brought back from the dead, Ghosts who want to go back to being dead, Somewhat suicidal ideation but its a ghost who wants to go back to where he belongs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 03:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8188529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wind_Ryder/pseuds/Wind_Ryder
Summary: Benjamin Franklin Gates read a tablet, summoned a ghost, and got stuck with John Laurens appearing in his living room.  Luckily, he broke the tablet that tells him how to send John home.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [digitalis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalis/gifts).



> Happy Birthday Digitalis!
> 
> Initial fic request: The theft of the declaration of independence by Benjamin Franklin Gates
> 
> Grand conspiracies
> 
> An explanation as to how noted motormouth and pragmatist hamilton somehow kept the secret of thousands of tons of looted gold and Egyptian artifacts and why he did not use any of it to pay off the national debt
> 
> A Night At The Museum-style resurrection of the founding fathers due to eldritch artifacts that humanity was supposed to have forgotten
> 
> Ghost John Laurens riding into battle on the back of a Galapagos tortoise

The gentleman in brown is standing quite unapologetically upon John’s coat.  Bloodied, though it may be, and admittedly strewn across the floor as if it were merely a trifling trinket, the coat still bore the colors of the continental army.  John is most dissatisfied by the lack of proper respect the gentleman’s showing it.  Then again, his face is twisted up in a most surprised expression.  The clay tablet Colonel Burr had acquired in 1783 slips most alarmingly from the man’s less than nimble fingers.  John hardly has time to say a word, before it smashes to the ground.  Scattering clay pieces across the folds of John’s coat. 

“Oh,” he breathes out.  “Well that’s troublesome.” 

Behind the dumbfounded gentleman there stands another man, and a woman in breeches.  “Dude,” the second man utters nonsensically.  “Where did you come from?” 

John has no notion of how to explain the complexities of their current situation.  Nor, does he feel physically well enough to have this discussion.  From the moment the tablet shattered against the ground, his innards began to twist unexpectedly.  He feels in his shoulder and side where bullets once tore through his body.  Something, much like blood, seems to slip along his skin. 

He’s unconscious before he hits the ground. 

* * *

There are several truths that John Laurens became aware of after he died.  The first, is that Aaron Burr is a contentious individual who had an abject fascination with all things dearly departed.  While John never quite understood how he came up with the clay tablet, whether it was given to him or he constructed it himself, what he did know was that in 1783 Burr had it.  He used it frequently, and on occasion, John was been summoned.

The second truth, is that his chance was forever altered because Colonel Burr refused to destroy said tablet.  The light and glory of his soldier’s heaven would never be a permanent state of delightful relaxation.  Instead stymied most annoyingly by Burr’s fascination with the tablet’s properties.  

The third, and perhaps most satisfying, was that the tablet felt much like a hand groping about in the dark.  Searching for the right soul to pluck from behind St. Peter’s gates to drag haphazardly back to Earth.  The moment after Alexander Hamilton joined John in heaven, older but not old enough to have died proper, Burr attempted to jerk him right back to the very Earth he’d just vacated.  

And, without so much as a second thought in the matter, John delighted in stifling Colonel Burr’s attempts.  The tablet was satisfied with pulling one soul at a time, and frankly: Alexander Hamilton deserved at least one moment in heaven before being pulled back to Earth.  If it infuriated Colonel Burr enough that he threatened to bash John’s head in if he continued interfering, all the better.  Colonel Burr deserved to be infuriated. 

The final truth that John understood in regards to the tablet, is that it is the only medium that can send him back to Heaven as well.  And so when he wakes up, still on Earth, some four hundred years after he’s died, John finds that he’d much rather be back in Heaven.  Truly, he wishes to go home now. 

“Who is that Ben?” The woman in breeches demands.  She’s reached an almost harpy level of agitation, and John isn’t particularly sure what he’s meant to do or say currently.  He shifts where he lays.  Eyes squinting up toward the three individuals crouched on the floor by his coat.  Picking up the pieces of the shattered tablet and hissing back and forth. 

One of the men notice his wakefulness.  Waves his hands toward his compatriots and draws their attention to where John is attempting, slowly, to sit up.  “Are you okay?” he asks awkwardly, looking for all the world like he truly wishes John would say ‘yes.’

“No,” he divulges instead.  Enjoying, quite a bit in truth, how it makes the other man’s shoulders sag and his expression turns pensive.  Altogether a rather appropriate reaction in John’s opinion.  “Please present some modicum of intelligence in that you recall how precisely to return me to the other side.” 

“Other side,” the other gentleman—Ben?—says.  

Once, when John had first joined the army, a horse reared up and he’d been struck in the eye by the contemptuous beast.  His head had ached him for days, and yet still, now, his skull aches worse.  Pressing his fingers to his temples he nods slowly, agreeing with a tight, “Yes,” that just sets off their furious whispering once more. 

“Are you...are you...dead?” the first gentleman asks.  

His female companion is not amused.  Not even slightly.  “Of course he’s not dead Riley, he’s standing right in front of you.” 

Finding no reason to not reveal the truth, John drops his hands to his sides.  “I died in Combahee in 1782.”  Her mouth falls open. 

“1782...1782…” Ben’s mutterings continue.  His face growing steadily more pale.  He looks down at the tablet on the ground, and then back up at John.  “Who are you?  Exactly?” 

“My name is Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens, and I want to go home.”  They stared at him.  Stared down at the broken tablet.  Stared back up at him.  His headache only increases.  “Do you have enough sense to recall the precise verbiage required to do so?” 

Of course they don’t. 

John wonders what would happen if they shot him again.  They are not amused with his suggestion. 

* * *

Led briskly from the office he’d much prefer to make camp in, if only for the slim possibility he would miraculously ascend there and then, he’s set at a table.  Fed food and given drink in an effort to keep him happy.  Good manners constrict him from being a poor guest, but it does not restrict him from making his intentions clear.  “You brought me here,” he tells Ben coldly as Ben all but throws books off his shelf in hopes of finding additional information.  “You will send me back.”

The woman, “Call me Abigail,” keeps looking at him as if he’s taken leave of his senses.  Lost his mind to madness and spouting obscenities. 

“So like, you actually died?” Riley asks him, sitting closer than John would prefer.  “What was that like?” 

“It felt as if my lungs were crushed within my chest, blood fleeing my body, bones snapped and broken, hooves stampeding over my limbs as I drowned in the mud of a river I played in as a child.” All three stop what they are doing.  Stare at him.  Horrified and disbelieving.  John grits his teeth.  He glares at Ben.  _  “Send me home.”  _

“Home being…?” Ben has the audacity to ask. 

“The other side.” 

“Heaven?” Riley jumps in.  “What was that like?” 

John doesn’t have it in him to explain.  Not at all. 

* * *

He’s been summoned before.  After Burr’s death.  Someone found the tablet and used it several times in efforts to speak with someone of importance.  Washington had no patience for leading a country after his demise, Jefferson seemed far too keen on giving an opinion Alexander didn’t want him to offer, and Alexander...no one wanted to hear what he had to say.

When summoned, Alexander initially looked forward to the opportunity to continue his work after his death.  But the questions asked of him were belittling and demeaning.   _ Why did you have an affair?  What was it like when your son died?  Why did you give your son those pistols?  Did you mean to die in your duel?   _

No questions on his political ideas.  No questions on his tax plan, his debt relief plan, his credit building enterprise.  No questions on his sailors or his lighthouses.  His military service, or his other accomplishments.  No questions of substance. 

John enjoyed standing in for everyone.  Enjoyed blundering the summoner’s attempts.  Enjoyed it, so much in fact, that they stopped letting themselves be summoned at all.  “The tablet had a letter attached,” Ben hastens to explain.  “That it didn’t work.” 

“Of course it worked,” John mutters unhappily.  “It always works.” 

Riley’s shaking his head.  “But why would George Washington not want to help lead his country?  It’s  _ his  _ country.”

“He chose to stop leading his country while he was President, do you really find it so hard to imagine that in his blessed retirement he would wish to continue leading a people who have left his good intentions far behind?” 

Ben is working to try to find another way to send John back to where he belongs.  But it changes nothing.  John’s quite certain there’s nothing he will be able to do to go back home.  He takes up his coat, wraps it around him.  Uncaring of the blood stains that still weep toward the floor.  He leaves the house, and ignores the way they all shout and sputter. 

Desperate to keep him in.  

There are things he has never tried in his many years walking between worlds. 

The world is so much brighter and louder than it once was.  Colors flash before his eyes and great noisy machines tremble down the roadways.  He can feel the tension rising in his heart.  The wounds that have marked him for death burning with each step he takes forward.  “Wait, wait—John.  You shouldn’t be out, you shouldn’t be—” he doesn’t want to listen to Abigail.  He wants to push away all thoughts of this place and be released from service. 

His time ended, and someone else can answer the tablet’s call next.  If there even is a next time.  Since Ben has broken the only way to get home.  So shocked was he by John’s appearance.  He is tired of questions, tired of answering endless thoughts and comments.  Tired of their inability to understand the depths of what they were working with. 

Ben presses forward and stands in front of John.  Nose to nose.  “I can’t let you keep walking around outside.” 

“You mean to stop me?”  John asks sweetly.  

“I mean to—” 

It is effortlessly satisfying to punch Ben in the face.  Watch as his nose splurts blood that stains John’s knuckles.  Abigail screams.  Riley seems prepared to faint.  “I apologize,” John says to Abigail.  “It’s unseemly to conduct violence in front of a lady.  But you have chased a tale that you should have lay still, and have damaged any chance of my return to where I wish to be.”

“We ‘an fib-lure ih ow,” Ben swears from behind his broken nose.  “Blee blow inslide” 

One of the machines makes a blaringly loud noise that causes John to jump.  Press a hand to his heart.  It’s beating unpleasantly within his chest.  It’s not fair.  It’s not fair.  

They lead him inside. 

* * *

Days pass.  Nights drag on.  John finds he cannot sleep.  He sits against the window in the house they live in.  They ask him questions.  They always ask questions.  Why didn’t Alexander Hamilton (his name is spoken with a reverence that John finds almost obscene, a sound he knows his dear Alexander would relish)  tell anyone about the treasure?  Use it to pay off the debt?  John stares at them blankly.  “Why would we wish to be parted with it?  Who would pay for it all?  Who would want it?”  They did not seem to understand.

John remembers the treasure.  Remembers sitting up late with Alexander and discussing the library.  The  _ library.   _ The papers that they could read again and again.  How much they could learn.  Studying endlessly.  It was any learned man’s dream.  Alexander never would have parted with the treasure, keeping it safe for all time.  Washington had chosen wisely with someone to safeguard its secret.  

“How did you find it?” John asks curiously.  Certain that it would have been kept in a place no one would have been able to find it. 

“Um.” They look amongst themselves. 

Riley is the weakest link.  John glares at him.  Imagines striking him as he struck Ben.  “We...may have...stolen the Declaration of Independence?” 

Sputtering, John’s not sure how he’s meant to reply to that. “You...stole it?” 

“Well it’s a long story.” 

It is.  It takes nearly two hours for them to go through it from start to end.  John stares at them.  Fascinated, horrified, and desperate to leave their presence.  They grant him leave to do just that, and let him return to his window where he could sit in silence. Thinking.  Trying to understand what has happened over the past four hundred years that would lead them to... _ this.  _

When Abigail comes to tell him food is ready for dinner, he shifts his face to display its most tragic and needy expression.  One that even his sister had struggled to ignore.  “Where are we?” he beseeches hopefully.  Abigail tells him.  “I don’t know where that is.”  She shows him a map.  Opens it up on a flashing  _ thing _ that makes his eyes hurt.  Feeling bad, she fetches a true and proper map.  One that shows all the roadways.  It takes her longer to read it and determine where precisely they are on it, but eventually she points to their location.  

He takes his time studying it.  Takes his time accepting the flashing lights that she presented him with initially.  In nodding his head when she talks about GPS and directions.  

Ben comes in while they’re discussing weather.  Food.  Money.  Seemingly very proud of himself, Ben tells John that he’s in luck.  They have a picture of the tablet.  It’s a little blurry, but they can read it.  They’ll send him home soon. 

It doesn’t feel soon enough. 

They mess up the incantation four times in a row.  John waits patiently, holding his coat firm between his hands.  Ben promises to set it right.  Just wait a little longer.  John refrains from punching him again.  Instead, he looks out the window at the metal monsters driving along endless roads.  

They seem much faster than a horse. 

* * *

John finds a metal monster kept in a barn by the house.  “They’re called cars you know,” Riley explains.  

Cars, then. 

Opening a door, John peers in.  Seats.  He sits.  Looks around.  There are pieces of parchment—stickers—affixed to the windows.  One such sticker declares the car Galapagos.  Riley tells him it’s called a Volkswagon Beetle, or bug.  John rather believes it looks much like a turtle.  “Do you want to learn how to drive?” Riley asks him, leaning down to peer at John through the window.  John considers the question for a long while.  

He says yes. 

* * *

Afterwards, when he’s mastered how to drive to some fine degree, he imagines that Riley may be in trouble for providing his lessons.  It is no matter.  With the great skill of an eager student, John puts in Combahee South Carolina into his GPS.  He affixes it on the windshield.  Then takes his Galapagos Turtle and he drives it to his final battle.

It takes him several hours.  Fingers tight around the wheel as cars stampede around him.  He questions Riley’s instructions regarding the speed limit, because certainly no one appears to be following the basic rule that Riley had informed him of.  You are not permitted to travel above it.  And yet.  Everyone seems to be doing so.  

Muttering unhappily under his breath, John peers around the suddenly unfamiliar lines of South Carolina.  Sometimes he recognized the horizon.  And when he did he would stop and stare.  Try to reconstruct his South Carolina in his mind with whatever nonsense this is.  It’s his America, certainly, but it doesn’t look right to him.  Doesn’t feel right.  His chest hurts.  His side hurts.  He feels his ribs creaking in his body. 

He reaches Combahee late at night.  Navigating his way to the river doesn’t take too long.  There are houses and property lines that he’s certain he’s ignoring by trespassing.  But he finds it.  Finds the precise spot where he lost his life.  “Okay,” he prays to God.  “I’m ready to go home now.” 

He doesn’t go home. 

This time, there’s no bullet waiting to draw him up to the people who care for him.  There is no army with their lines and their guns.  There is no boom crack of the cannon and rifle.  There is just silence.  

* * *

Ben, Abigail, and Riley find him in the morning.  Curled beside a tree he’s convinced himself has been here for four hundred years.  He’s drawn his knees to his chest.  He’s shivering with a cold that doesn’t do a thing to pull him where he wants to go.  “I’ve got it,” Ben promises.  “This time I’ve got it.”

Slowly,  _ slowly,  _ John looks up.  

And Ben says just the right words.  John finally remembers that that’s exactly how it’s meant to go. 

His disappears with a pop and hiss. 

And when he returns to where he belongs, Alexander throws his arms around his neck and tells him, “Next time, Jefferson can go.  No one cares if we lose him forever.” 

John cannot help but agree. 

**Author's Note:**

> Somehow I'm capable of writing crack that is also somewhat sad? 
> 
> Also. Someone should take John Laurens away from me. I can never write him happy.


End file.
